Karate Warrior 2 (1988)

Karate Warrior goes to college. Is there any idea for a sequel that manages to simultaneously cause snickers, loose stools, and breathless anticipation more than the idea of the biggest dojo douche set loose on campus where he’ll likely get beat up at frat parties, beat up in between classes on the quad and beat up back in the dorms?

And all while struggling to maintain a D+ average because all his study time is spent standing in his backyard in silly poses while his kung fu master smacks him in the head for not using his spirit to fight instead of his strategy of deflecting his opponent’s blows with his overly feminine face?

If much of that didn’t actually occur during the movie, it was only because the Italian icons from the original Karate Warrior (star Kim Rossi Stuart and director Fabrizio D’Angelis) had so little grasp of American culture (What kid goes to a Florida college wearing a Harvard shirt? What university has bells signaling the beginning of each class? Who would ever have pennants for both the Kansas City Chiefs and Indianapolis Colts hanging up in their bedroom?) and were so inept shooting a karate match (I kept wishing I had paid more to watch the fight because it felt like I had one of the worst seats in the arena!) that they accidentally made an even better film about Kung Fu Pansy’s life at the discreetly never named Florida college!

Fresh off his big win over a Filipino bully in the first movie, Karate Sissy Anthony Scott is back on his home turf of Miami and he hasn’t let his adventures in the Philippines change him at all! He’s still the biggest turd wipe riding a ten speed bike and causing a road rage incident with his inattentive pedaling within minutes of the movie starting.

In true Nancy Ninja fashion, he comes out on top though by hiding behind some bushes and later taunting the unfortunate drivers as he drives by and sees that they’ve been arrested! (For what, we don’t know, but then again this is a movie that has the 18 year old Tae Kwan Do Twerp living alone on a yacht, so some things you just have to accept on faith.)

Next stop of his Tour de Farce is the surprise birthday party as his grandparents’ house! And what a party it is! At first it seems strange that they’re trying to force Anthony into eating a giant slice of cake so he has energy for college (for when he is running away from fights like a chicken, no doubt), but there’s a set of car keys hidden in it!

Thankfully, despite whatever else you might say about him, Karate Warrior is no Karate Oprah so he didn’t snarf the cake down so fast he choked on the keys! One test drive and totally nonexistent transition later, he’s suddenly cruising to college where he promptly gets run off the road right into the Everglades by a band of local toughs known as the Tigers!

He hitches a ride back to town with a fellow nerd named Luke. Luke is understandably reluctant to pick up the soaking wet Anthony since Luke has seen the Rutger Hauer horror classic The Hitcher, but is quickly won over by Anthony’s pathetic pleading and promise to be Luke’s friend. If only C. Thomas Howell had made Rutger promise to be his friend, maybe things would have turned out differently.

Luke provides the backstory necessary to explain the Tigers to us and Anthony. The Tigers are a bunch of karate freaks who run the whole county! And by run it, Luke means they hang out at the soda shop next to the gym when they aren’t going to the very same college as Anthony!

The Tigers are led by Dick Anderson, a guy who only looks marginally less wimpy than Karate Puss. Anthony invades their soda shop hangout and confronts Dick and tells him he needs to pay for the damages to his car and that a check will be fine. And then he gives Dick his address so that Dick knows where to send the restitution! Anthony Scott – earliest case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ever diagnosed!

Anthony’s first day of college is like any dork’s first day. Dick Anderson’s white trash girlfriend tricks him into going into the ladies room, Anthony finds out his dad went to the same school 20 years before (don’t they ever talk?) and Dick Anderson discovers that it was Anthony’s dad who had his own dad expelled because Anthony’s dad narced his own dad out for gang banging a gal! Obviously there’s a beat down with associated homophobic comments coming for Anthony!

Anthony has a plan though! He’s going to get Dick to agree to a fight in front of everyone so that he can’t fight dirty! But Dick also has a plan! Doesn’t the college janitor always have money problems because his of daughter’s illness? Sure! What shady college janitor doesn’t!

Dick will just have the janitor be Anthony’s corner man and instead of soaking the sponge in plain old water to squeegee Anthony between rounds, he’ll also dose it with chloroform! Not to worry, following an epic pummeling, Anthony remembers his super powered Dragon punch and wins. But Dick was just the mini boss! The real battle is yet to come! I give you…Mark Sanders!

God no! Not six time state champ Mark Sanders who went to prison for drugs! Not the Mark Sanders who is glad to take a measly $5000 to kill Anthony in the ring! And not the Mark Sanders who founded the Tigers ten years ago and is going to restore the Tigers’ honor! (Assuming Dick comes across with the other $2500 following his victory.)

Considering there’s a total of six Karate Warrior movies, you really are getting a good bang for your buck. (Though it will probably feel a bit like that gang bang Anthony’s dad saved that girl from whenever Luke is bleating about how nobody cares about him and whenever you hear Karate Warrior speak since its the same middle aged guy from the first movie using a higher pitch to sound younger.)

You get Karate Warrior 2‘s two main events complete with surprise arrival of Karate Warrior’s Oriental master to train him (by hitting him in the head) in two days, the terrible clothes (Karate Warrior wears a striped shirt that improbably matches the wall paper behind him in one scene), the strange domestic life Karate Warrior and Luke lead (Luke cooks him breakfast, drinks Champaign and eats caviar with him, and Anthony petulantly moans about Luke burning his hamburger) and the crowd pleasing savage beating Luke gets from Mark Sanders that lands the simpering crybaby in the hospital so that he has to listen to the fight over the radio just like Dennis Hopper did in that other greatest sports movie of the 1980s, Hoosiers!

Published by monsterhunter

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One thought on “Karate Warrior 2 (1988)”

I remember watching this one on Italian television while on holiday in Rome years ago, and despite the language barrier, it was still very clear that for some reason the ‘hero’ of the film was a massive annoying turd. Hilarious from start to finish however. They do actually show these films on their main TV channels over there – this one was on RAI Tre as far as I can remember. I first saw The Last Shark on Italian TV too, in much better shape than any subsequent version I’ve tracked down.